


Loveletter

by estriel



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Romance, Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:18:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21789619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estriel/pseuds/estriel
Summary: Javi may not know just what he is doing when he finally accepts Brian’s standing offer of employment as the old year turns into the new, but he certainly knows why.
Relationships: Javier Fernández & Yuzuru Hanyu, Javier Fernández/Yuzuru Hanyu
Comments: 25
Kudos: 157





	Loveletter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MsDaring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsDaring/gifts).

> Happy Holidays, @MsDaring! <3 Thank you for the wonderful prompt, I loved writing it. I hope you enjoy this bit of fluff and feels! 
> 
> I apologize for any typos and blunders - since I did not have your editor eye to look over this for me, I had no option but to yolo it. ;)

_“To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau_

** _How to start._ **

He feels lost. It is a feeling that has been growing inside Javi’s chest for a long while, heavy and dark, like a thick raincloud swollen to bursting, an endless gloomy winter. He focuses on the shows, the work surrounding them, promoting and doing interviews, participating in events, attending business meetings that make him miss the simple sensation of ice beneath his feet and a choreography to etch into his body’s memory.

Then the shows end and Javi finally forces himself to face the fact that he doesn’t know what to do with his life. He has ideas, lofty plans, a bunch of collaborations and productions in the negotiation stage… But here he is, home in Spain where he had always longed to be, and he feels fidgety, lost, and oddly lonely.

He does not miss Marina. The break-up had been amicable enough, a sigh of relief after trying to make things work by sheer stubbornness for way too long. It’s not that.

He does miss the ice. Not the gruelling training that staying on top of your game requires – his body has taken all the hits it possibly could, and the way his knees creak sometimes makes Javi wonder if he’ll be able to walk without pain when he’s older. He misses the easier parts. The satisfying crunch of ice under a perfect outside edge, the freedom in focusing on the here and now, letting his mind’s constant churning fade into the background while his muscles work on their own. He misses the soothing comfort of falling into rhythm during a stroking session.

Javi may not know just what he is doing when he finally accepts Brian’s standing offer of employment as the old year turns into the new, but he certainly knows _why_.

The _why_ – or at least one of them, perhaps the main one, if Javi is being honest – makes itself very present the moment Javi returns to Cricket ice on his first day on the job, in mid-January. He has just stepped out onto the ice when he finds himself with an armful of Yuzu, laughing and crushing Javi in a hug that is perhaps closer to a body-tackle than an embrace. Javi joins in on the laughter, forgetting to worry about whether this is professional, forgetting his qualms about coming back as a coach after all these years of being just _one of the kids_, forgetting everything that is not the soft tickle of Yuzu’s wispy hair against the side of his face, or the familiar, intriguing blend of scents that, to Javi, is Yuzu: herbs and citrus, ice and perspiration, and something sweet, likely the sugary isotonic Yuzu likes to drink during training.

Javi inhales, closes his eyes, closes his arms around Yuzu’s waist for a long moment. He doesn’t know what to say for his life right now, or where it will take him now that he is here in Canada, but he knows that this, at least, is the right beginning.

** _In The Zone._ **

It comes to him easily. The routine of having a fixed schedule, coaching and sharing his knowledge with the younger skaters and – surprisingly, on occasion – Cricket Club’s group of enthusiastic adults, even the waking up earlier than he is accustomed to for some of his sessions. Javi settles in with surprisingly little effort – into the life at the club, into the cozy new apartment he has signed a lease for, into good old Toronto.

What surprises Javi even more – and probably shouldn’t – is how easily he and Yuzu adjust to being close once again, after the two or so years they have spent missing each other.

That part is still the one that amazes Javi. Not the fact that Yuzu missed him, or that the feeling was mutual. What amazes him is the fact that Yuzu had admitted to this unprompted, coming at Javi completely unguarded. _I missed you_, Yuzu had told him outright, sometime during Javi’s first week as a coach at Cricket. _I’m really happy you’re back, Javi_. There had been such openness, such disarming warmth in Yuzu’s eyes as he said that that Javi had been left speechless for a moment.

They had never done this: words, conversations, open and honest and vulnerable. It had not hampered their understanding of each other, of course, but it may have been why they had never come _closer_ than they had been…

Things seem to have changed now that Javi is no longer a rival. And so Javi finds it easy, _natural_, to simply ask:

“Do you want to grab a coffee once you’re done?”

Yuzu quirks an eyebrow at him, eyes playful, and he doesn’t need to say anything for Javi to understand.

“Tea,” Javi amends, smiling. Some things change, but Yuzu’s aversion to coffee doesn’t seem to be one of them.

“Tea,” Yuzu agrees, and nods. “I would like to.”

The tea Javi buys Yuzu ends up going cold, the porcelain cup used as a hand-warmer more than anything else, while Yuzu talks Javi through the science behind the quad axel and why it is completely within his powers… and yet still mostly eluding him, at least where the landings are concerned.

Javi watches him, the way he mimics and gesticulates excitedly, speaking with his hands as much as with his mouth, completely unlike the calm, collected persona he puts on for the media. In his official interviews, Yuzu is water, the surface of a lake, rippling but quiet, calm. In reality, Yuzu is fireworks. Javi has always liked that about him. He likes it now, when Yuzu finally remembers the tea and sips it, only to grimace immediately, expressively, at finding it tepid. “Damn tea,” he mutters darkly, and Javi laughs.

“Let me get you a fresh one,” he says, and catches the waitress’ eye to order another tea.

When they leave, two teas, a coffee, and a flaky pastry they split between them later, Javi feels positively buoyant. Like that dark raincloud that had been dragging him down for months has moved on, cleared the sky for brighter days.

“Thank you,” Yuzu says, then tucks himself into Javi’s embrace before Javi can even say _you’re welcome_.

And when it takes Yuzu a minute, then two, to unpeel himself from Javi, making Javi’s heart tighten with something that is as far from dark and disturbing as can be, Javi begins to wonder just how he has deserved this, just how he has managed to fall into this sunny spell.

It makes Javi wonder if it had always been there, and he just hadn’t seen it – the rainbow ready to burst forth from the clouds, the bright, alluring halo of something… _more. _

** _Scratch this._ **

It’s mid-February, Toronto is covered in sleet, and Yuzu’s jumps are not behaving. It’s not just the quad axel, which Yuzu had finally, awe-inspiringly, managed to start landing as January swung into February. It’s the sal, and the loop, and it would be the lutz, too, if Brian allowed Yuzu to practice it more than he does after the recent near-miss that had made Javi’s stomach turn and wish he could lend Yuzu his own ankle.

“You don’t need the quad lutz,” Brian is saying, trying to be the voice of reason. His advice clearly falls on deaf ears, as Yuzu just skates past, glaring daggers, a storm brewing on his face. “You don’t need the lutz to beat Chen,” Javi hears Brian add.

“I don’t need to beat _Chen_,” Yuzu spits, a testament to his mounting frustration. He never speaks to Brian this way, or any of his coaches for that matter. “Need to only beat myself.”

Javi watches Brian as he very obviously resists the urge to throw his arms up in despair. Brian is frustrated and anxious, too, and it’s showing.

When Yuzuru takes off to set up for the lutz, Javi decides he just can’t watch this anymore. It may not be his place as a coach, but as a friend…

“Yuzu,” he calls out and pushes into the ice to bring himself closer to Yuzu’s speed, to put himself into the way of this mad rush that can only end in injury.

Yuzu flits right past him, dodging Javi’s attempt at intersecting his trajectory, and then he’s setting up again, a series of steps to put himself on the outside edge, muscling into a lutz like he usually never does.

“Hijo de puta,” Javi curses under his breath and resists the instinct to close his eyes so as not to see the inevitable crash.

Yuzu pops the jump into a double and falls. It is a fairly harmless fall – a hard hit on the hip, for sure, but no danger to Yuzu’s ankle – and Javi sends a silent prayer of thanks to whichever higher force has taken mercy on them.

“Yuzu,” he calls out again, but Yuzu ignores him. He hops up, kicks at the ice in frustration, then skates off and steps off the ice, a thunderstorm rumbling towards the locker rooms.

Brian shoots him a look and Javi shrugs, then makes to follow.

He hears the locker room door bang dramatically, and if the situation was not sort of grave, Javi would almost smile. _Fireworks, _he thinks, and pushes the door open to enter the lion’s den.

He knows how this feels, of course he does, he’s been there before, they both have. But Yuzu had seemed so much calmer, so much more attuned to what was truly important, mindful of his health and his body’s limitations… To see him lose it like this now is unexpected.

He finds Yuzu standing by the opposite wall, one arm braced against it, shoulders tense. 

“Yuzu, you need to – “

“Don’t tell me what I need,” Yuzu whips around, eyes flashing, angry spots of color blooming on his face. “You’re not coach, so you don’t tell me anything.“

Javi blinks at the sudden outburst. He knows it’s just stress, just helpless frustration bubbling up to the surface, nothing personal. It still hurts.

“I’m not your coach but I – “ Javi starts, and stops. _But I love you, _he had almost said. And he does, Javi realizes. It’s less of a surprise than he would have expected… After all, Javi supposes he always sort of knew. That there was more, or at least the potential for more, his heart a compass that had led him back here, to Canada, to Cricket, to Yuzu. “I care about you, Yuzu,” he says instead, carefully.

Some of his hurt must show in his voice because Yuzu looks up, and his eyes have lost their previous fury.

“Javi,” he says, voice small as the tension seems to whistle out of him, like hot steam escaping a pressure pot. Yuzu suddenly looks lost, and worn, and both young and older than Javi remembers all at once. Javi notes the rings under his eyes, and the shallow worry-line that seems to have etched itself into Yuzu’s forehead, one that Javi knows will disappear soon enough, but an unexpected crack in Yuzu’s vibrance all the same. “I’m sorry,” Yuzu mumbles.

“I know,” Javi says, and when he wraps his arms around Yuzu’s slender frame, feeling him quiver in the embrace, Javi wonders how much longer till he says those words, the ones he had carefully stopped and replaced just a moment before.

Not very long, he thinks. Not very long at all.

“Come on,” he says instead once he releases Yuzu from the hug. “Let’s get out of here.”

Yuzu looks at him, puzzled for a second, then understanding flashes across his face. He gives a minute shake of his head, hesitant. “I’m not in mood for coffee shop,” he says, sounding sad and weary. 

“No, Yuzu, that’s not what I meant,” Javi says quickly, giving Yuzu a small, encouraging smile. “I meant – “ he stops there, feels the blush creep up his cheeks quite without his permission. “Do you want to come to my place? To hang out, rest, whatever you want. I have hot drinks, too.” He shrugs, smiles, suddenly self-conscious, wondering if he is overstepping some boundary, if their newfound closeness is something that nevertheless still must stay in the safe confines of the club, the club’s cafeteria, or the nearby café that Javi has taken Yuzu to many times now. He chews at his lip, worried, his stomach tingling.

“Must apologize to Brian first,” Yuzu says and Javi looks up just in time to catch his small frown disappear to make space for the soft smile that blossoms in its place. “But I would love to,” Yuzu goes on, and Javi’s heart skips a beat.

** _To the Point. _ **

After that first time filled with moments of hesitant silences and Yuzu’s residue _kuyashii _hanging over their heads, Yuzu’s presence at Javi’s place becomes a regular occurrence: Yuzu sitting on Javi’s kitchen counter, munching on his own special food while Javi makes himself something to eat. Yuzu drinking the loose-leaf tea that Javi has bought specifically for him, feet tucked under himself as he goes on about one thing or another, usually skating, nodding to himself and nodding when Javi offers his perspective in turn, or reviews a video of his recent practice with him. Yuzu, lying on Javi’s couch, eyes closed, headphones in, doing whatever visualization or image training he does, unmoving except maybe for his hands. Yuzu napping on that same couch, falling asleep after a day of practice so exhausting Javi isn’t sure how Yuzu even managed to walk the short distance from the rink to his apartment.

Javi covers him with a blanket and sits back down on the carpet in front of the couch, listening to Yuzu’s even breathing and feeling like his heart is about to burst.

By early March, Javi is so used to Yuzu’s presence that on the days Yuzu does _not_ join him after practice, he feels bereft and a little antsy, as if somehow Yuzu belonged there, inside his apartment, inside his life, inside his heart, a crucial puzzle piece just about to click in.

It’s never more than what one could technically still define as friendship – companionship, sharing space, talking… Nothing out of the ordinary and yet Javi knows that everything is different, this time. It’s the small things – the way Yuzu laughs a bit more freely around him than around anyone else, the way he looks at Javi when he thinks Javi is not looking, the way he turns to Javi at the end of a successful run-through, and smiles, then beams wider when Javi nods at him, impressed and proud.

To everyone’s relief, Yuzu’s jumps do return after their short period of truancy, and when they do, he pushes himself harder than Javi remembers him ever doing, his lips often nearly purple and his breath coming out in painful-looking wheezes after a double-run-through of his free skate, the axel a crowning jewel of Yuzu’s five-quad layout.

“I miss competing with you,” Yuzu says one night in mid-March, lying on his back on Javi’s couch, eyes closed. He’s been like that for a while now, blanket and all. Relaxed, finally, even though his days as he works up to peak at Worlds are anything but.

“I do, too,” Javi echoes from his usual spot on the floor, leaning back against the couch by Yuzu’s shoulder.

“We were both scored the same, Javi. And you still beat me,” Yuzu says with a small, sleepy laugh that tastes a little bitter, but also a little nostalgic. Javi is not sure what to say, so he just reaches back and pats Yuzu’s shoulder behind him. Yuzu is silent for a moment, then mumbles: “You were best competition.” There is a hand reaching for Javi, an absentminded stroke of fingers through his hair. Javi shivers at the touch, leans into it, and wonders if he can say it, if he can breech the topic now, only a few days before Yuzu departs for Worlds.

Before he makes a decision, though, Yuzu’s breath falls into the regular rhythm Javi now knows means he’s fallen asleep, and Javi smiles to himself. He can wait, the words can wait. This is enough, more than enough.

When Yuzu doesn’t wake up, instead sleeping way past a sensible nap-time, Javi sends a quick text to Yumi to let her know that Yuzu’s fallen asleep and that he is likely not going to come home tonight. He wonders sometimes what Yuzu’s mother must think, what with Yuzu being at Javi’s almost more than he is at home, especially on occasions like these, when he informs her that her son will sleep at his place. Since Yumi always answers with a variation of _thank you, Javi_, and smiles at him whenever they run into each other at the club, Javi assumes that she approves, that he has her blessing… whatever he may need it for, in the end.

He lets Yuzu sleep and reluctantly heads to his bedroom, worrying about Yuzu sleeping on the couch, which can’t be great for his body. But he is tired, too. He’s taught several sessions today, and had a bunch of paperwork to wrangle on top of that, and he falls asleep nearly the moment he lies down in his bed.

When Javi wakes up, it is dark, and he is disoriented – he doesn’t often wake at night, not anymore, now that he’s not competing anymore and stressing out over it. He starts to roll over, groggy and half asleep, when the mattress on the other side of his bed dips and another body slips under the covers.

“Yuzu,” Javi mumbles, smiling through his sleepiness. It is a subconscious gesture, almost, opening his arms in invitation. Javi is not thinking, he just does it, and it seems that Yuzu is not overthinking anything, either – he simply sinks into Javi’s embrace without a moment’s hesitation, shifting until he’s pressed against Javi’s side, his head tucked into the crook of Javi’s neck and one of his hands on Javi’s chest, against his heart, warm and solid through the cotton of Javi’s t-shirt.

It happens without words, like they are unnecessary, like this is the natural course of things, as easy as breathing, the way things often have been between them. Yuzu leans his head back a little to squint at Javi in the weak light coming in through the windows. One moment they’re looking at each other, blinking away sleep, and then Yuzu’s lips brush against his, just a light touch, just there, closed-mouthed and soft. Javi sighs, content, and tugs Yuzu closer, closing his eyes.

_Te quiero_, he thinks, or maybe he whispers it into Yuzu’s citrus-scented hair as he is drifting off, Javi cannot be sure. He doesn’t mind. He’s pretty sure Yuzu knows, anyway.

**PS: I love you. **

Montreal is caught in what Javi – ever the Spaniard – would classify as a blizzard. Normally, he would be grumbling about snow in March, in _March_, but this year, the weather doesn’t even register.

He feels afloat, something bright and beautiful bursting into life inside his chest, even if spring has not truly come to Canada yet. Javi knows the feeling – ignored for years for the sake of careers and competitions, stomped at but never really extinguished while he and Marina had tried to make things works, then finally accepted and nurtured and growing, ever growing.

When Yuzu had crawled into bed with him that night, that had been it, that single chaste encounter of lips, a night spent in a warm and cozy tangle of sleep. That had been it, the morning after comfortable and filled with smiles and the mingled aromas of tea and coffee. It had been enough, then, when Yuzu looked at him over breakfast and said:

“I have to focus on Worlds now, I think,” with an apologetic little shrug and a look Javi would almost believe was bashful if this wasn’t Yuzu, with his fierce determination and that well-known fire burning in the background, under the calm surface.

“I know,” Javi had said, and smiled, brushed their hands together the way Yuzu had done with their lips a few hours before. “I will be right here.”

And he was, and he still is, right here, waiting, full of pride and excitement and so much love he doesn’t know how to put it into words.

When Yuzu finally knocks on his hotel room door that night, once it’s all over, Javi just stares at him for a second, taking him in, the seemingly unassuming slenderness of him.

Yuzu is wearing his oversized black sweater, the one he hides in when he just wants to walk around unrecognized, even though Javi assumes that even this disguise doesn’t really work, not when the place is full of skating fans. His hair is fresh from the shower, damp and hanging into his forehead. He looks like a dork, and Javi has never seen a sight more beautiful.

“You did it!” Javi lets the happiness out the moment Yuzu is inside his room, breaking into a grin, seeing the responding tug of a smile on Yuzu’s face… before Yuzu crumples into his arms, burying his face in Javi’s neck, breathing heavily. “You’re incredible,” Javi says, his palms sliding up and down Yuzu’s back.

Yuzu looks up at that, and Javi can read the exhaustion in his face, the embers of a flame kept burning a tad too long these days. Then Yuzu reaches into his pocket and hangs the gold around Javi’s neck.

“I owe it to you,” he tells Javi, nodding, “I owe everything to you.”

Javi shakes his head, fingers the edges of the medal. “This one’s all you, Yuzu,” he says. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You were there,” Yuzu says, fixing Javi with a stern gaze. Then his expression softens. “You are here now.”

“I am,” Javi nods. “I always will be.”

The smile on Yuzu’s face glints like a thousand gold medals. Then they are kissing, and Javi is not sure who moved first – it is a falling together, an intertwining that they both have been waiting for longer than they care to remember.

Yuzu’s tongue is hot and insistent as it slips into his mouth, and Javi welcomes the breach, feeling breathless, brim-full with every emotion he’s been holding at bay for weeks, months, years.

Yuzu’s hair is soft under his hands as he threads his fingers into the black strands, cradles his head while they kiss.

Javi barely knows what he is doing, lost in the moment, but he knows why, always the same, familiar why.

_Because I love you_, his lips say as he kisses all over Yuzu’s face, caresses up to his ear, his temple, his forehead.

_Because I love you_, his hands spell as he undresses Yuzu while Yuzu unpeels Javi’s own clothes, impatient and trembling.

_Because I love you_, his fingers write on Yuzu’s skin, touching everywhere he can reach, finding the spots that make Yuzu gasp, and the ones that make him giggle.

_Because I love you_, his eyes sing as he stares into Yuzu’s lust-blown ones, savoring the dizzying sweetness that is Yuzu, all around him, sharp nails digging into Javi’s shoulders, urging him on with heated please, _yes, Javi, more, please, yes, like that, I need – _

_Forever and ever, _his heart says as he holds Yuzu through the afterglow, hazy-eyed and spent.

“I love you, too,” Yuzu murmurs against his mouth, a golden sunrise after a long and stormy night, a spring, finally come.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Feelings? I'd love to know, let me know in the comments! 
> 
> If you're 18+ and would like to come chat with me and a whole bunch of other fic authors from the figure skating fandom, come join and talk to us in our Discord server. You can join using [this link](https://discord.gg/DyxBV5mXg2).


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